Cavs: Three focus areas for Darius Garland for rest of 2019-20

Focus area #3 for Garland: Keep feeding the bigs

It’s been awesome to see Garland consistently feeding bigs throughout games.

His connections via pocket passes, drop-offs and lobs to players such as Tristan Thompson, Larry Nance Jr. and occasionally John Henson have resulted in so many point-blank looks for Cleveland and head coach John Beilein. This feed on Thursday in a narrow loss to the Toronto Raptors by Garland to Nance, who crushed it emphatically, was something else.

Now I understand that Thompson is on an expiring contract and seemingly would have a good chance of being moved soon with the February 6 NBA trade deadline looming, as Sports Illustrated‘s Jeremy Woo highlighted (and as is Henson), considering the Cavs probably won’t want to take a chance on TT leaving this offseason and them getting nothing in return for him.

Fedor also reported that Thompson and the Cavaliers have not had any future contract/contract extension discussions.

Nonetheless, Garland has had his chemistry with Nance grow throughout 2019-20 as DG has played with reserves a bunch, too, and considering Nance is both a  good lob/rolling threat an capable three-point shooter at 34.9% on the season, per Basketball Reference, Garland needs to keep feeding Jr.

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After all, Nance is a really good passer for a big, as evidenced by him putting up 3.2 assists per game in 2018-19, and in that way, is taking off somewhat lately with 2.8 helpers per outing in January, as shown by NBA.com.

Factoring in that, I’m sure rewarding Nance will get Garland more and more three-point/elbow floater looks if the rookie, who has shot 35.1 percent from deep this year, keeps feeding the springy big man.

Along with rollers such as Nance, Garland has fed Love well on the perimeter in most instances.

While post entry passes have been a mixed bag, and especially an issue for Collin Sexton, Love’s had plenty of on-point looks on the perimeter from Garland’s penetration kickouts/ball-swings to him this season.

Anyhow, though Love reportedly prefers to be traded by the Cleveland Cavaliers, per Fedor, given that Love is due to make $91.5 million over the next three years following this season and with this summer’s weak free agent pool, I’d now probably expect DG to still have Love post-trade deadline, which is a change in tune.

Love, for reference, did at least say he would still be “happy” to be with the Cavs post-deadline last week. If that’s the case, DG needs to keep feeding the five-time All-Star in Love, who is a gifted passer in his own right.

Clearly, Garland feeding big men throughout this season has resulted in many high percentage looks, which has in turn, opened up some weak side cutting opportunities for Osman, Kevin Porter Jr. and at times, Alfonzo McKinnie.

McKinnie is currently near the end of his second 10-day deal with Cleveland, by the way, but has been with Cleveland most of the season in combination on a non-guaranteed deal, then a previous 10-day deal, and I believe he should eventually be signed through the rest of 2019-20, after the deadline.

Okay so now on to a second focus area for DG for the rest of this season.